Saturday 4 January 2014

A Trip to HMS Victory

HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship, which led the British fleet
to Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1905.
Way back in the autumn (it seems such a long time ago now), the Man of the House and I spent a long weekend down on the south coast. The weather was dire (it still is) but nevertheless we had a wonderful time, and spent a day in Portsmouth, where we looked round Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory, which was absolutely fascinating. I took the camera with me, but stupidly forgot to charge the battery before we went. However, before it died on me I did manage to get a few pictures of Victory, which I’m putting up for this week’s Saturday Snapshot, as well as  some of Henry VIII’s ship, the Mary Rose (I’ll try to remember to post piccies of that next week). 
Sightlines: Once upon a time this gun (or is it a cannon?) would
have been used in war, and you would have seen a battle
raging outside, but all we saw was rain! 
HMS Victory is, apparently, the oldest commissioned warship in the world, completed in 1765, but not commissioned until 1778, and the facts and figures about its history and construction are amazing. She (I should call Victory she, not it – ships are always female, don’t ask me why!)  has 26 miles of rigging, and 6,510 square yards of sail and was designed to carry 100 guns.
Man and ropes! The Man of the House up on one of the decks.
 All I knew about her was that Admiral Horatio Nelson died on board after he was shot during the Battle of Trafalgar, when the British beat the French, so I looked it up and found that 27 British ships defeated a combined force of 33 French and Spanish ships, off the south west coast of Spain, near Cape Trafalgar. For some reason I thought Trafalgar was in Belgium, but I think I may have confused it with Waterloo!  
I have no idea of the technical terminology - I just wanted to
get  a shot looking up at one of the masts!
Actually, it came as something of a shock to see just how small the Victory was. It must have been so cramped for the 820 men on board, very dark and uncomfortable, and pretty dangerous as well, since this was a warship, and they had no guarantee they would ever make it back home, for they ran the risk of being killed in action, or dying from wounds or disease. Some were ‘pressed’ into action, but many more had chosen to join because life in His Majesty’s Navy was better than life ashore – at least they had an income, and regular meals (however awful the food may have been).
Dishes and containers for the men were all made of wood,
and you can see the hammocks strung up behind the table.
And I’d thought of the men as all being sailors – wrong again, because there was a hierarchy. At the top of the ranks were the officers, and the non-commissioned officers who included specialists like the ship’s master, the bosun, the surgeon, the gunner, the carpenter, the purser (who was 67, which must have been pretty old in those days) and the cook, as well as midshipmen. Then there were petty officers, able seamen, ordinary seaman, landsmen who had never been to sea before, and 40 boys – one just 12 years old. In addition to that there were four Royal Marine officers and 149 marines, who were a sea-based unit of soldiers.
A close-up view of a hammock... not at all what I imagined.
It’s the details about the men who lived and worked on board that I found most interesting. There’s masses of information about them as you walk around, and the most charming serving naval officers act as guides, to answer questions and explain what went on 200 years ago. The narrow hammocks, made from strong material, with proper sides were another surprise – they in no way resembled the flat, swinging, knotted string bedding of my imagination. But they must have been difficult to get into, and they were not very big. I think they are about 16 inches wide, so those Georgian sailors must have been jolly fit, and jolly thin! 
The galley: I reckon this is smaller than my kitchen!
And I never dreamed the galley would be so small! It was dwarfed by the huge iron cooking range - however did anyone ever manage to cater for almost 1,000 men in that confined space? And what about the chickens and pigs kept on board to provide some fresh food!
The cooking range - would you like to cook on that? At sea?
In rough weather? What with this, and lanterns, and candles,
and all gunpowder on board I'm amazed there was never a
fire or explosion!
Even more astonishing are the Admiral’s quarters, which are positively luxurious compared to the space where the ordinary crew members slept and ate.  Nelson’s bed, or ‘cot’ as it was called, looks bigger and more comfortable than the hammocks used by the crew, and was hung with drapery embroidered by Lady Emma Hamilton (a replica is on display). And his dining room wouldn’t have looked out of place in an elegant stately home of the period, with fashionable furniture, delicate china and fragile glassware – I dread to think what the breakage rate must have been like in rough weather! 
Part of the Admiral's Quarters.
However, life for the men was much less grand: they had to make do with mugs and platters made from wood, which had the advantage of being cheap, and unbreakable. Breakfast was normally cold oatmeal porridge, and there was often some kind of stew, made with salt meat, in the middle of the day, while the evening meal was more likely to be ship’s biscuits and cheese.
Men had chests to store their possessions - the scarlet jacket
is part of a marine's uniform.
Fresh water went off quickly so, according to the guide book, the daily rations usually included eight pints of beer. That’s a gallon of beer a day – just imagine that sloshing around inside you all the time! When you stop and think that there were 820 men on board, all drinking a gallon of beer a day for the duration of a voyage, you can see it adds up to an awful lot of alcohol, which was all stored in barrels down in the hold. Gunpowder, food and water was also kept down, along with vast quantities of iron shot, and baskets of shingle, which could be moved around to ‘trim’ the ship and improve sailing performance. 
One, two, three... BANG!!! Re-enacting firing a gun.
The ship had to be kept clean, and the decks were scoured with ‘holystones’, which were blocks of sandstone, cut to the size and shape of a Bible. But we didn’t see any provision for washing facilities for the men. Perhaps they didn’t bother, because fresh water was in such short supply, or perhaps they hauled a bucket of sea water on board and doused themselves in that. And don’t even think about toilets. All they had was a bench, right up by the bow or the head of the ship… and there were  holes in the bench, open to the sea down below! Isn't that horrible? 
Leg irons, known as bilboes, were a form of
punishment. Sailors were also lashed with the
cat o'nine tails for things like theft or insolence.
As an unexpected bonus, our visit coincided with Trafalgar Day Celebrations (the battle took place on October 21, 1905 ), so we were lucky enough to see a re-enactment showing how a canon was fired - but without actually firing it for real, which was a bit peculiar, but there would certainly been an outcry if they used live ammunition! 



There were ropes and wheels and stuff
all over the place - you had to watch
your feet and not trip over!
We saw the spot where Nelson died, and a barrel like the one in which his body was ‘pickled’ to preserve it for burial when they finally got back home. I’d heard this tale before and always thought it was a myth, but apparently it really is true. They stuck the body in a barrel of brandy, and I think they added other stuff to help with the preservation – a bit like making brandied peaches! Thankfully, the barrel on display is a reproduction, and is about as tall as me, so it must be around five feet, which may not be all that big for a person, but is pretty large for a barrel. And that seems like a good place to finish!
Nelson, painted by Lemuel Francis Abbott.
*(Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda, at West Metro Mummy - click to follow the links to other participants).

33 comments:

  1. Your trips delve into so much history. Sounds like a terrific time. Here's Mine

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    1. Paulita, it was fun and fascinating. Very low ceilings though! The Man of the House had to keep ducking so he didn't hit his head!

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  2. I like the galley a lot. Wouldn't it be fun to live on a boat?!

    Here's my Saturday Snapshot.

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    1. For a short time I lived on a boat on the Thames. Beautiful in the early morning in the summer, with mist rising off the water, and lots of wildlife, and wildflowers on the banks. But very tight on space. No good for untidy book-lovers!

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  3. The hammock actually looks comfy!

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    1. They looked comfier than I thought they would look, but I still wouldn't fancy sleeping in one. I'd be scared stiff of falling out, but I'm a fidgety sleeper!

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  4. Thanks for a great visit! Another spot to add to my next trip to England itinerary!!

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    1. Portsmouth is great. There's the Victory, and the Mary Rose Museum, and naval museums, and an early iron ship you can go round. And you can go round Charles Dickens' Birthplace, but we didn't have time. And there's loads of other interesting places nearby.

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  5. Oh man, I bet cooking on that was quite dangerous. It looks like a fascinating place to visit.

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    1. I felt that range wa an accident waiting to happen... Surely everything (including the hot coal, or wood, or whatever fired it) would be moving around all the time...

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  6. Wow, a history lesson with color pictures and great information. Thanks you much!

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  7. Very, very fine photos. What a lovely collection to remind you of your visit to the ship.

    Anne's Saturday Snapshots

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    1. That's nice of you to say so Anne. It was a lovely day.

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  8. Great pictures! I'd love to visit this someday!

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    1. Thank you Melinda. I'm not really into naval history, but this was fantastic - not just the link with Nelson and Trafalgar, but being able to see how sailors lived and worked 200 years ago. It was a hard life.

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  9. I love visiting historical sites and learning about different time periods etc. That ship is beautiful! And no, I wouldn't want to have to cook on that even in calm water, let alone out to sea.

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    1. I always think there's a lot to be said for progress when it comes to housework and cooking! And talking of cooking, the Foodie Book Challenge looks interesting.

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  10. Loved the armchair tour and the history lesson!

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    1. Thank you Susan. It makes me happy when people like what I've written.

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  11. Wonderful photographs! Thanks for sharing!!

    Here is my snapshot post.

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed the photos. It was very dark inside the ship, and the weather was terrible, and flashlight wasn't allowed, so I had no idea how these would come out.

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  12. Wow, such a fantastic post. I learnt so much. For some reason I thought the battle of Trafalgar was much before 1905. The ship is fascinating.

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    1. Well, I'm no good at dates or military history - I got Trafalgar muddled with Waterloo, which was 1815, and in land!,

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    2. Looking at Wikipedia, it would appear Trafalgar was in 1805.

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  13. Loved learning all this -- thanks so much for the pictures and story.

    My favorite novel that I read in 2013 was Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein and the last words of Nelson were a big part of the story. So, it's great to get more details from your post.

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    1. That's an interesting connection - maybe I'll give it a whirl. I've seen reviews of this book, and they all say good things.

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  14. This looks quite interesting. I do not think life on a ship is for me. Ghent is similar to Brugge-not as pretty but more interesting I thought. It is much larger. Brugge has become quite touristy. I had a couple of free hours so took the train there and wish I stayed with my prior memories. It has changed a lot and is just overrun with tourists and shops now.

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    1. Life on a ship would definitely not be for me. Sorry to hear Bruges has changed so much. It's a few years since I've been, and I really enjoyed it, but it wasn't too busy when we visited. I loved the architecture, and the canal.

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  15. That is fascinating, and amazing to me that that many men could live in those conditions. What a life! Thanks for the pics and info- very nice.

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    1. I knew ships from that period were small, but I didn't realise how small until we went round Victory. Thank you for commenting.

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  16. Great shots! Amazingly enough, I pulled up your link and yelled "wait a minute!" and ran to my phone-there's a piece of the HMS Victory at the science museum in Boston, MA and I had a snapshot of the plaque they used from when we visted Boston last March! Everything is connected somehow, the internet is like one big small town sometimes. Cheers!

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    1. I love it when things link up like that Laura. Fascinating to think there's a piece of the ship all that distance away.

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